COEX

COEX occupies the Korea World Trade Center complex at 513 Yeongdong-daero in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, in the heart of the city's southern business district. Its history runs back to 1979, when the Korea Exhibition Center - KOEX - opened on the same block as the first permanent comprehensive exhibition hall in Korea, a 26,249 sqm building with one basement and three upper floors that was then the largest exhibition facility in the country. The present COEX was built ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and the ASEM Tower was completed on the old KOEX site in 2000 after the 1996 Asia-Europe Meeting confirmed Seoul as host. That lineage makes COEX the birthplace of the Korean MICE industry, and it has since carried the 2000 ASEM summit, the 2010 G20 Seoul summit and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. The centre has four exhibition halls - A, B, C and D - with a combined 35,316 sqm, plus 55 meeting rooms, a 1,080-seat auditorium and the 3F Grand Ballroom of 1,972 sqm. Halls A and C are 10,368 sqm each on 144 by 72 m grids, Halls B and D 7,290 sqm each on 108 by 67.5 m grids, all at 10.5 m clear height and 1.5 tonnes per sqm floor loading. The halls connect directly to the COEX Mall, hotels and the Trade Tower, so a show can run without stepping outside. The original KOEX translated traditional Korean timber framing into steel pipes and space trusses; the present complex is an underground and podium exhibition layer beneath a dense above-ground programme of offices, retail and convention space. Access is exceptionally direct. Samseong Station on Seoul Metro Line 2 connects to COEX underground, and Bongeunsa Station on Line 9 serves the eastern side; both are within a few minutes' walk of the halls.